Fun with Music

This year Zac and I are homeschooling for first grade. It will be my first year ever teaching Music and it's an enormous stretch and challenge for me. But, every new subject is a chance to take some risks and have some fun! And I know enough to know that General Music (at least when I was in elementary school) begins with the musical instrument families. That feels very doable!

Here is a list I'm compiling of resources:

A House Filled with Music
by Margret Rettich

Music Maestro vintage board game

Musical Instrument three part cards Set 1 and Set 2
Montessori Print Shop on TpT

The Philharmonic Gets Dressed
by Karla Kuskin

Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin
by Lloyd Moss

I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello
by Barbara S. Garriel

Ty's One-Man Band
by Mildred Pitts Walter

Geraldine, the Music Mouse
by Leo Lionni
flute

Drum Dream Girl: How One Girl's Courage Changed Music
by Margarita Engle
drum

Double Bass Blues
by Andrea J. Loney
double bass

The Bat Boy and His Violin
by Gavin Curtis
violin

Play Me A Story: Nine Tales About Musical Instruments
by Naomi Adler
pipe, fiddle, harp, flute, drum, singing drum, lyre, tiktiri, didgeridoo, balalaika

The Music of Life: Bartolomeo Cristofori & the Invention of the Piano
by Elizabeth Rusch
piano

Carnival of the Animals: Classical Music for Kids
by Camille Saint-Saëns

Can You Hear It?
by William Lach

88 Instruments
by Chris Barton
best for... introducing a child to his/her own instrument

it is also really fun to get a set of keys which have been removed from a piano and put them all in number order!

I LOVE the idea of tying music in with Form Drawing, especially with running forms. Joyful loops and spirals make me think of jazz, so I think we will begin there. I like the idea of showing that even adults play with music, before we get into working specifically with an instrument. (I have a Choroi pentatonic flute and pentatonic glockenspiel. Zac is also really interested in my teardrop lap dulcimer, so I am hoping to find him a teacher for that.)

I highly recommend David Darcy's Playing and Teaching the Pentatonic Flute and Pentatonic Recorder! It's available at A Child's Dream.

In no particular order, some resources about jazz. I've purchased all of these books and am really excited about reading them! I'd also like to begin putting them in chronological order and choosing some music to highlight.

The 5 O'Clock Band
by Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews
modern book, really brings to life the culture of New Orleans

good follow-ups would be:
find the city of New Orleans on a map
take a riverboat cruise
listen to "When the Saints Go Marching In"
read a book about Louis Armstrong
eat some of the foods mentioned in the book (red beans and rice, andouille sausage, collard greens, okra with tomatoes)

Trombone Shorty
by Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews
trombone

The Greentail Mouse
by Leo Lionni (Mardi Gras)

Jazz
by Walter Dean Myers
really useful introduction & timeline

Freedom in Congo Square
by Carole Boston Weatherford

This Jazz Man
by Karen Ehrhard
EXCELLENT

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong
(1900-1971)

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
(1878-1949)

Luciano "Chano" Pozo y González
(1915-1948)

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington
(1899-1974)

Charlie "Bird" Parker
(1920-1955)

Art "Blu" Blakey
(1919-1990)

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie
(1917-1993)

Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller
(1904-1943)

Charles "Baron" Mingus
(1922-1979)

Just a Lucky So and So: The Story of Louis Armstrong
by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Dizzy
by Jonah Winter
Dizzy Gillespie

trumpet
played with Charlie Parker (saxophone) and Thelonius Monk (piano)

Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
sang with Dizzy Gillespie

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
by Katheryn Russell-Brown
Melba Doretta Liston
trombone
played with Dizzy Gillespie

Bird & Diz
by Gary Golio
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie

Charlie Parker Played Be Bop
by Chris Raschka
saxophone

Birth of the Cool: How Jazz Great Miles Davis Found His Sound
by Kathleen Cornell Berman
Miles Davis
trumpet
played with Charlie Parker

Mysterious Thelonius
by Chris Raschka
Thelonius Monk
piano

Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane
by Carole Boston Weatherford
John Coltrane
saxophone
played with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis

John Coltrane's Giant Steps
by Chris Raschka

Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra
by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Harlem's Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills
by Renée Watson
Black Beauty by Duke Ellington is a tribute to her

The Music in George's Head: George Gershwin Creates Rhapsody in Blue
by Suzanne Slade
Rhapsody in Blue debut was in 1924

Jazz Age Josephine
by Jonah Winter

Oskar and the Eight Blessings
by Richard and Tanya Simon
William James "Count" Basie
1938

When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson
Pam Muñoz Ryan
April 9, 1939

Denied A Stage, She Sang For A Nation
April 9, 2014 - NPR

Other thoughts:

The Noisy Paint Box: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky's Abstract Art
by Barb Rosenstock

The Maestro Plays
by Bill Martin
best for... a Grammar lesson (adverbs)

Because
by Mo Willems
best for... a Grammar lesson (conjunctions)

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker
by Patricia Hruby Powell
this is really lovely but it's not a picture book
best for... an older student learning about biographies

A Song Is Born (1948)
first hour only, through the end of the "Longhair Jam Session"

A Song Is Born (1947)
Library of Congress

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